Once Upon a ONTD Original: Revisiting Once Upon A Time's 'The Little Mermaid' adaptation
-In celebration of the Disneys 'The Little Mermaid' film finally premiering, wanted to revisit The Little Mermaids other big live action adaptations....this time on ABCs successful Once Upon a Time
-"Once Upon a Time" tells the story of a new world, one in which fairy-tale legends and modern life collide. Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison) is comfortable in her life as a bail bonds collector when Henry -- the child she gave up a decade earlier -- suddenly shows up. He is convinced that she is the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, who sent her away before the Evil Queen could cast a spell, freezing the fairytale world in time and bringing them to present-day Storybrooke, Maine. After taking Henry home, Emma decides to stay in the town to keep an eye on him, and she discovers he may not be wrong after all.
-The show would run for 7 seasons and adapt every single disney movie there was...all the way up to Frozen and with each adaption it would loosely adapt the characters to fit their ongoing story and tie them all together somehow. So how did it make The Little Mermaid part of its world? Let's find out:
-Once Upon a time would end up tackling Ariel and her world in Season 3 casting Joanna Garcia to play Ariel.
-In OuaTs version of the tale, we learn that Ursula is a mythological sea goddess that the Merfolk and humans worship. Ursula grants Mermaids the gift of legs once a year for 12hrs. The humans hold a 'Under the Sea' ball once year to pay tribute to Ursula.
-After Ariel saves Prince Eric from a shipwreck, the two would wound up not seeing one another for a year. Ariel learns of the 'Under The Sea' ball and that Eric would be there and thus goes to land to profess her love to him but she gets cold feet.
-Ariel leaves the ball and asks Ursula to give her legs longer than 12hrs. As nothing happens, she is ready to give up her wish and faith in Ursula but suddenly...."Ursula" appears
-"Ursula" informs Ariel that she can keep her legs if she finds a human to take her place as a Mermaid. Ariel encountered Snow White earlier who informed her that she was being hunted by The Evil Witch - Regina -. Ariel uses the magic sea bracelet given to her by Ursula to transform Snow White into a Mermaid....only for it to be revealed that it was a trap by Regina who was posing as Ursula to trap Snow.
-Ariel stabs Regina with a fork and helps Snow get her legs back and they each escape. With Ariels time up as a human, she returns to the Ocean and finally gains the fins to call out to Eric and reveal herself as the one who saved him....but she is to late as Regina steals her voice as revenge for allowing Snow White to escape from her clutches.
-Ariel would spend the next 29 years roaming the sea voiceless. As Reginas curse did not reach Ariels kingdom, she doesn't know what happened to anyone until Regina calls for her in Storybrooke to help out with defeating Peter Pan. Regina gives Ariel her voice back, she finds Eric in Storybrooke who has been turned into a Fisherman. The two temporarily reunite and gain their happily ever after....until a new curse comes along.
-Eric would be kidnapped by Black Beard. Ariel would help rescue him and they'd finally have their real happily ever after. She'd return briefly to team up with Jasmine/Aladdin in their fight against Jafar
-During Once Upon a Times 7 year run...it would give us 3 different Ursula's.
-First one we encounter is 'The Evil Witch' aka Regina who impersonates her to use Ariel as a pawn.
-We learn that Ursula is a mythological sea goddess that the Merfolk and humans worship. After Regina impersonates her, the "real Ursula" (voiced by Yvonne Nicole Brown) appears in her mirror and threatens Regina that if she ever impersonates her again, she'll feel her wrath. We never hear from this Ursula again.
-In Season 4....we are introduced to ANOTHER Ursula who is also part squid and she is played by Merrin Dungey.
-This Ursula starts out as a villain and is evil besties with Maleficent & Cruella.
-We learn that this Ursula is actually a Princess! She was once a Mermaid and her father was Poseidon. P-Daddy HATED humans as they killed his wife and thus he uses Ursulas BEAUTIFUL voice to lure humans to their deaths.
-Ursula eventually does not want to hurt humans as they are not all bad. She runs away and steals a magical bracelet that gives her legs and eventually encounters Hook.
-She will learn that P-Daddy hired Hook to track her down, steal her singing voice and Hook will be given deadly squid ink.
-Enraged by this betrayl Ursula steals P-Daddys trident and transforms herself from Mermaid to Squid girl vowing to take revenge on the entire world and becoming a full time villain.
-She teams up with Mal/Cruella, they take on the residents of Storybrooke and each one eventually gains their happy endings.
-Hook reunites Ursula with P-Daddy who returns her singing voice to her and the two repair their relationship....and go back home under the sea.
-All in all...The Little Mermaid would receive one of the worst adaptions in Once Upon a Time (imo) as the Ariel's story is broken up between her/Ursula which was weird.
Source: Me and 7 years of torturing myself
